The old RKO Palace Theater as it emerged from beneath downtown Rochester. Photo by Tina Yee.

The old RKO Palace Theatre was uncovered in downtown Rochester last fall, emerging from beneath a parking lot looking much like the foundations of a forgotten civilization rescued by a team of archaeologists. Heavy equipment scraped and clawed away the debris that hid the old theater for four decades, sweeping away broken brick to reveal a vast room where big-band singer Vaughn Monroe once performed, and when movies were always preceded by a handful of cartoons.

Built in 1928, and originally called the Keith Albee Palace Theater, the decor was elaborate, from the marble floors with their Persian rugs and the huge, winding staircase. ”Panels of gold satin brocades are outlined with low-relief decoration in ivory, gold and silver,” the Democrat and Chronicle wrote at the time, “with the entrances to the men’s and women’s lounge rooms at the right hung with heavy gold draperies. Four large crystal chandeliers are suspended from this dome ceiling with smaller torchiers along the walls.”

The excavations this fall revealed a flat area which was once the huge lobby, the largest of any of the old downtown theaters, leading to the sloped floor and its terraced steps, where 3,200 chairs were once lined in gently curving rows. The Ink Spots performed here. Amos & Andy. Eddie Cantor. Edgar Bergen. Bob Hope. Ethel Waters. Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. George Burns and Gracie Allen. Kate Smith. Paul Whiteman and his orchestra.

The Fourteen Bricktops, a jazz band of red-haired women played the palace. Rin-Tin-Tin had a week-long run, performing tricks. And Rose’s 25 Midgets, vaudevillians ranging from 19 to 44 inches tall.

And there were those movies. When the first CinemaScope film, The Robe, came to town in 1953, surplus Army searchlights were positioned outside, sweeping the skies to announce the event.

The Palace fell to the wrecking ball in 1965. It is survived by its great Wurlitzer organ, which rose on an elevator out of the floor. Today, that organ rests beneath the stage of the Auditorium Theatre, still in working order. Excavation has continued throughout the winter on his block-long section of downtown Rochester, on Mortimer Street between St. Paul and Clinton avenues. It now looks like little more than a gravel pit, and that will evolve into a bus station. A necessity, perhaps, and also a reminder that society no longer aims to build on a grand scale. The RKO was architecture as an event. It made coming downtown seem like a wondrous evening.

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Jeff Spevak has shaken the hand of Johnny Cash. He has done a shot of whiskey with Bo Diddley. He sang with Tina Turner for 12 seconds. His Top 10 albums of all time include 17 by Bob Dylan. He likes dogs, the Cleveland Indians and wine. His favorite books are Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He likes to eat Chilean sea bass.

Catherine Roberts: Lead Local Editor/Life, is the mother of two teenage boys. She's so used to being overbooked that when there's a spare moment, she feels the needs to know what's going on around town to fill the gap. Favorite things in Rochester include the museums, Red Wings games and concerts. But most of the time, you'll find her and her husband, Chad (the Democrat and Chronicle's overnight editor), at a bowling alley, the sidelines of a ball field or walking a dog in their Irondequoit neighborhood or Durand-Eastman Park. If you have any ideas, please email at cathyr@DemocratandChronicle.com

Diana Louise Carter was born at Rochester General Hospital the same year it opened and reared in Bristol, Ontario County. After college and grad school, her first reporting job was on a small newspaper in Western Massachusetts. She returned to Rochester in late 1987 to work for the Democrat and Chronicle. Carter covers agriculture and banking. She lives in the Upper Monroe neighborhood of Rochester with her husband and three children.

Anna Reguero, a former Democrat and Chronicle music critic, a clarinetist and a graduate of Eastman School of Music, is a doctoral student in musicology at State University of New York at Stony Brook.